Can 2013 Bring Hope & Safety for the Indian Woman?

End-of-the-world date mania (12/12/12 and 21/12/12) now makes way for some old-fashioned end-of-the-year list mania. Good old Facebook gets increasingly invasive. The social networking site that’s more addictive than sex now lets you “see your year 2012 in review” with 20 key moments (photos, videos, comments, likes, status updates) that defined your year that was. Just what the doctor ordered after its couples’ pages for a miraculous voyeuristic peek into relationship highs and lows. Google’s Zeitgeist 2012 gives us a country-wise analysis of search results. The No. 1 celebrity India googled was Canadian-origin porn-Bollywood actor Sunny Leone, while eager-to-strip starlet Poonam Pandey (who?) was third on the list. Moving to movie mania, Sallu’s Ek Tha Tiger ruled followed by Akki’s Rowdy Rathore. As for most searched-for cities, Delhi came out tops over Mumbai and Bangalore.

That’s not all our capital scored for. Call it India’s rape capital or sperm city, 2012 saw a new high in rape cases after six years. Now here’s the shocker — only one conviction during the whole year, despite 635 rapes being reported and 754 arrests. No wonder, as per 2010 statistics, Delhi was termed the rape-happiest of 35 major Indian cities and an expert kidnapper-abductor of women, accounting for 1,422 or 37.7% cases in the same cities. Not to be left behind, the rest of India has been doing its bit. Madhya Pradesh recorded 3,135 rapes, followed by West Bengal’s 2,311, Assam’s 1,721, Maharashtra’s 1,599, Uttar Pradesh’s 1,563 and Andhra Pradesh’s 1,362 cases.

Sets the mood for a Top Attacks on Women in 2012 list, doesn’t it? Just to remind us of the things men high on P power can get away with. Here are a few highlights:

Resolutions for 2013? Wider laws to ensure criminals are punished with terms longer and tougher than the current seven years minimum. Else testosterone will continue to reign over us. And take us to task — fine us when we wear jeans, get us married ASAP to prevent rapes... — when we don’t obey. Better still, they’ll marry us themselves. Because marital rape is not a crime as per the Indian Penal Code.

The opinions expressed are those of the writer/columnist and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of this website.